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I need help figuring this gift out
When we first found out we were moving out here, my husband looked up an old high school friend of his that he knew went to law school, and learned that she was now a partner at a small firm in SF in my field. So he emailed her to say hello, let her know he was moving back, to reconnect, and oh by the way, wife is a lawyer, care to help her?
She was glad to hear from him and super eager to help me. So, since March I've been in touch with her about jobs. She's given me feedback on my resume, sent it to a few places, got me an interview, introduced me to a few people, etc. When we were here in April, she had me and DH over for dinner with her, her husband (a chef who cooked the most amazing dinner), and their two kids. Since that time, DH has been more or less out of the loop with her and I've been the only one talking to her. Our conversations are more professional than social.
I'd like to do something nice for her to thank her, but I'm not sure what makes the most sense...there's so many layers here.
- a more corporate type gift (not sure what?) or something simple, like homemade cookies and/or a bottle of nice wine...
- Do I send it to her home/family or to her office?
- Do I send it just from me, or from me and DH?
I'd like to keep whatever I do to under $50 unless you think it's absolutely imperative that I spend more.
If it makes a difference, on Friday, I'm having lunch with both her and another partner at her firm, and that partner has some people she knows that she'll send my resume to.
What do you think?
Re: I need help figuring this gift out
My old boss (the restructuring attorney, not the corporate attorney turned ibanker) loves to send bottles of champagne - magnums of vueve clicquot yellow label. Those are closer to $100. Other corporate type gifts include food products, but having been on the receiving end of those gifts... they're not so exciting. I'd stick with a bottle of wine or champagne/sparkling wine - maybe something local or less well known?
I don't think you need to spend more than $50. And I'd sign it something like (assuming you say 'thank you' in the body of the message),
'Best Regards,
ESF (&DH)'
or something cute like that. It's a friendly professional type of relationship, so you can use reasonable friendly wording.
Anything you can achieve through hard work, you could also just buy.
Oh! I know this sounds like a no-brainer, but be sure she drinks alcohol before giving it as a gift. My former boss (the corporate attorney turned ibanker) is Mormon but would still get gifts of wine from coworkers and clients. It was always kind of awkward... especially last Christmas when her team-member gave everyone on the team a bottle of white and a bottle of red from Australia. She didn't say anything, but she and I would kind of make eye contact afterwards.
Well, unless she is Mormon, Muslim, or in recovery (and I assume ESF would know about the first two), she's a lawyer, so alcohol is pretty much guaranteed to go over well. If you know what she likes, you could also go with a nice liquor. For me personally, bourbon is the quickest way to win my undying love and affection. But if you aren't sure, red wine is probably the safest bet. But not merlot - I feel like Miles in Sideways, but nofucking merlot!
I'd echo the liquor, if you know what she likes. If you don't, please don't guess. We've had a bottle of scotch, unopened, sitting on our basement bar for 3 years.
Ok, so it's only actually been on our basement bar since we moved in August. Before that, it was on the non-basement bar.
Great, thanks for the suggestions. I will go with wine, to the office, from DH and I. She definitely drinks...we brought wine over when we had dinner at her place.
Feel free to send it to Milwaukee. In my best Ron Burgundy voice: scotch scotch scotch!
See, I would say office for a couple reasons:
1) It's professionally related
2) In my experience, there's always someone to accept deliveries at a law firm whereas it sucks to coordinate deliveries to a residence (unless she lives in an apartment building with a doorman or has a housestaff, in which case, forget this point).
Excellent point on the delivery. But what if she has to share it? ;-)
Haha, I think my former boss used to include things like, 'for you and [spouse name] to enjoy on your much-deserved night off' or something like that. Maybe something like that would keep the coworkers away.
...unless, of course, those coworkers want to give ESF a job.
Hmmm...well, I'll see how my lunch goes on Friday and decide. It's still early.
It's much easier for me to get it to the office than the home anyway, so if that's an acceptable approach, I'd rather do it that way.